Discover this Sunday League Team Boasting Nearly Two Thousand English Top Division Games
How can you improve a stellar veteran side that have claimed consecutive championships, featuring a league-cup double boasting 30 victories from thirty-two matches?
Sign a group of ex- professionals that have competed at the top level of club and global soccer as you pursue further honors.
One Manchester team boasts an amateur veterans team with 9 ex- Premier League footballers in their present squad.
222 Premier League Scores, 325 International Caps
The team Vets Over 35s are situated in southern Manchester and compete in the Cheshire Vets Division Top Division.
Their roster this campaign boasts nine former Premier League players, with a collective 1,801 Premier League matches.
The high-profile squad also boasts 222 top division goals and over 320 global caps.
They feature Papiss Cisse, who netted thirty-seven scores in over 100 games for his former club after joining them for nine million pounds from Bundesliga club SC Freiburg in 2012.
Cisse had his first appearance for Wythenshawe in their last home match versus reigning champions Collegiate Old Boys and scored every one of the six goals in a six-two victory - including a half-hour opening period triple.
Wythenshawe's roster for this campaign also features former pros such as English and Liverpool forward Emile Heskey, Hull City and Burnley midfielder George Boyd, Toffees striker Oumar Niasse, Wigan full-back Maynor Figueroa, Manchester City pair Stephen Ireland and Nedum Onuoha and top-flight championship victors Joleon Lescott and Danny Drinkwater.
Together, the ex- Premier League players have secured fifteen significant honors and transferred for combined transfer sums of around £123m.
Famous Figures and International Players
Ireland began turning out for the side in pre-season this season through close friend and present team player Blake Norton, and the ex- Irish player then asked additional former professionals, who all play in a midweek small-sided match, to join in.
Ex- Senegal striker Oumar Niasse, who netted twelve goals in sixty-five Premier League matches for Everton and even now attends their matches at Goodison Park, also made his first appearance against Collegiate OB - who are located in the city and use an Blue warm-up gear as their strip.
"A friend Stephen Ireland said 'come and have a game, it's enjoyable'," said Niasse.
"Then he informed me we were facing a side from the city and the surprise I had when I saw them sporting Everton shirts - I thought this is strange for me!
"When you still enjoy football and you feel you can still play, wherever you can play, what are you going to do?
"Those spectators who come and watch are happy and to make a moment if they see us competing there and to ask us questions - it's really about the pleasure of us having somewhere we can enjoy football, with structure of course."
Such is the strength in depth at the club, Niasse made his first game at defender.
"It's a little unusual but then, I enjoy running and just go inside - I'm not defending that much," he said.
"I tell my centre-back 'I'm not hanging back' and that I'm just going to keep running.
"That running is what I'm looking for. It's good fun."
Unreal Experience
Along with Cisse's 6 scores on his first game, Ireland has netted 8 in three games for Wythenshawe, while George Boyd hit 5 on his first appearance and Joleon Lescott, a defender by position, scored a triple in one game as a striker.
The team are leading of the Premier Tier with 3 wins from 3 and a goal difference of plus nineteen.
One opponent, 38, who features on the flank for Collegiate OB, came up against ex- Latics full-back Figueroa on the weekend - and had to tell his nine-year-old boy who Heskey was.
Figueroa has appeared at 2 global tournaments for Honduras, in addition to playing in over two hundred top-flight games.
"The news was going round like wildfire they had all these ex-Premier League players," said the player.
"I felt I was a little starstruck playing against Figueroa to be honest.
"Even Heskey came on and he's got 60-odd English caps.
"Our side competed well for a good twenty mins but then we had a man sent off and it was hard.
"Our group really haven't stopped talking about it - I was phoning my mother and brother on the way home.
"They were all really nice, shaking our hands after the match - it was like playing a group of regular guys.
"Now we are eager for the return fixture."
We Will Still Take the League'
The manager manages the Collegiate veterans team, who won the Premier Tier title last season, together with his co-manager.
"We scored one-nil up and had a